


Everything We Come Back From

by alexpeanut



Category: Five Horsemen - Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Blood, It's a respawn AU so everyone gets shot a lot, Multi, a lot of blood, and dies, but not like DIES dies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-12
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-05-06 06:00:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5405651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexpeanut/pseuds/alexpeanut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Permanently respawning AU for Street</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

She wakes up to the sounds of Zack freaking out. Her ribcage feels like someone stepped on it and her hands are slippery with some dark liquid and Zack is shrieking in her ear "holy shit, holy shit, HOLY SHIT" and Cal yanks up her shirt without so much as a by-your-leave, feeling frantically along her abdomen.

"There's no wound." His voice is flat, the kind of quiet panic she's only heard once before and that's when Zack had nearly died. She looks blankly down at her hands, taking in the massive amounts of blood staining her skin, and shirt, and smeared across her stomach.

"Who got shot?" She asks, and her voice rasps like it's gone unused for a while.

Zack is crying, hands patting her face, her arms, frantic in his panic and she's starting to freak out a little too, looking to Cal for an explanation. He still looks too pale, his hands covered halfway past his elbows in blood, streaking dark across his shirt and even up to his chin. "Jesus Cal, are you okay?"

"It's not my blood." He says, still too quiet, too flat, haunted eyes flicking down to her stomach and back up. "It's yours."

She doesn't feel like she's been shot. She hurts, an all-over body ache that's centered in her abdomen but it's closer to the burn of a over ambitious workout than the usual shocked numbness of a bullet wound. But... But she remembers, now, remembers the wail of sirens and a crazed drive down side streets, trying desperately to aim out the back of a van with Zack whooping in her ear, throwing grenades behind them like benedictions while Cal scolded from the driver's seat. She remembers the bright recoil, being forced back into the van against the pull of momentum, red streaming through her fingers where they clutched at her stomach. Pain consumed her.

And then nothing, like falling asleep, waking to Zack crying and Cal kneeling stone-still in the bed of the same van.

"I died." She tries the words out, arms coming up to wrap around Zack where he shakes against her shoulder. Cal holds her gaze and she can see it aging him, the stress and confusion and all the grief and fear being shoved back.

"You were dead for thirty minutes." He confirms quietly. "No heartbeat, no pulse. Dead."

"But I'm alive now."

He nods in agreement.

\---

The first thing she does when they get home is shower. She stops in front of the floorlength mirror and sticks her fingers through the bullet holes ruining the fabric, one-two-three, feeling the unbroken skin underneath. She strips out of the bloodsoaked clothes and lets her hair down, noticing finally how crusted it is in back from lying in a pool of blood. Her blood.

It hits her in a rush and she's crumpled to her knees on the bathroom floor, hugging herself as though she still has to fight to keep her organs in, bloody strands of hair obscuring the view of the pristine floor tiles. She doesn't realize the keening noise is coming from her until the bathroom door clicks open, Cal stepping in and stripping perfunctorily before coaxing her gently off the floor and into the shower, holding her under the spray with broad hands as he washes the blood off. Her stomach takes the longest, the blood soaked into her skin turning the water into a fountain of reddish pink as he gently scrubs.

She knows distantly that she's shaking, or maybe he is, or maybe they both are, but when they finally emerge Zack is waiting in the bedroom with a pile of pillows and blankets and a movie marathon and he refuses to settle until she's cocooned between them, Zack's head resting on her stomach where she's slouched down against the headboard, his fingers lightly stroking her thigh in time with his breath.

\---

Zack's next. It's not like that fact surprises anyone because if he got more into his explosions he'd be in them, literally, but it still hurts like a punch to the gut when the coms catch his soft "oh" and Kadira watches him disappear in a ball of flame. She cries out but Cal is already moving, halfway to his body by the time she remembers to swing the sniper rifle around to point at the warehouse exit. She picks off another two guys, letting the numb ice of shock keep her hands steady on the gun and then she's packing up, booking it down a fire escape and to the van where it's idling in an alley. Cal is lifting Zack's body into the back as she slides into the driver's seat and she can see him in the rearview mirror, skin ashen and mouth set in a hard line. 

She peels out when he shuts the doors, carrying them away from the crackling of flames and various explosions as the warehouse's contents go up, but she can't feel the normal rush of pride over the fear in her veins. 

"Cal." She says urgently, noticing that he isn't doing anything to help Zack, is instead looking at his phone. "Cal!"

"Twenty seven minutes." He says simply, showing her the timer, and the bottom of her stomach drops out as she realizes Zack isn't breathing. 

It's a tense half-hour. She drives on autopilot, winding them towards home in a slow spiral to lose anyone on their tail, and the whole time Cal sits in the back, eyes glued to his phone's screen. 

At three minutes she pulls off onto a back street, confident they're alone. 

At one minute she's sitting in the back of the van across from Cal, trying not to look down at Zack's body. 

The sudden intake of air startles them both, Kadira nearly hitting her head on the roof of the van when she jumps. Zack shifts from where he's lying, curling up to cough as Cal grabs one arm, taking his pulse with a slightly frantic look in his eyes and Kadira can barely breathe through the rush of euphoria that floods her.

The timer rings, a stupid snippet of music that she installed on a whim ("~I guess I'll die another day/ It's not my time to go~") and they all flinch at the sudden noise, and then Zack's coughs turn into breathless laughing and it's Kadira's turn to say "holy shit. Holy shit!" as she hugs him. His clothes are badly burnt and hanging off him but his skin is completely unmarred. 

"I'm invincible!" Zack crows through his laughter and Kadira's pretty sure she's leaking tears onto his shirt but she's smiling too, and has to scoot up to kiss him, open-mouthed and messy. 

"You taste like burnt things." she says when she pulls away, wrinkling her nose, but Zack just laughs and hugs Cal where the other man is sitting slumped against the wall of the van, looking relieved. 

Kadira leans back against the opposite wall, trying to slow her breathing, and eventually they're all just sitting in the back of the van staring at each other. 

"So we can't die?" Zack finally asks, picking at his burnt clothes. 

"We can. We just....don't stay dead." Kadira says.

\---

Kadira starts a list.

"Shot." Zack reads over her shoulder. "Burned. Blasted. Head trauma-"

"Is that what we're calling slipping and falling on a table corner now?" Cal asks dryly, earning a glare from Zack. ("It was an accident!" Kadira had protested, helping Cal heave Zack's motionless body onto the couch.  
"Just set the damn timer.")

"Stabbed." Zack continues after enough of a glare had been administered. "And...drowned? Why the question mark?"

"Cal was already dying of blood loss. I'm not sure if the wounds or the lack of oxygen actually killed him." Kadira says matter-of-factly.

"Huh. Is there a point to having a list of all the ways we die?"

"Technically," Kadira corrects, "it's a list of everything we've come back from."


	2. Chapter 2

Cal's breathing wetly in the bottom of the boat. Somehow it's audible even over the sounds of the police chopper chasing them and the rocker launcher Zack's wielding with a vengeance. The spoils of their heist have been dropped haphazardly on one of the boat's benches and spill onto the floor every time Kadira whips them into a tight curve to avoid a hail of gunfire. Some of the bills are already nearly black with Cal's blood and all of a sudden she realizes that he's stopped breathing.

"Fuck." she says, and then louder, yelling it into the ocean, "FUCK!"

Zack barely startles beside her, wide eyes meeting her gaze briefly before sliding away to take aim at another chopper. They're swaying wildly as she yanks the boat through the waves but beyond that motion she thinks she can see his hands shaking even through the darkness. She pretends her hands aren't clenched around the steering wheel tightly enough to cut off circulation, all too aware that the puddle around her boots may not be entirely water.

It takes longer to escape the spotlights and police jet skis than it does for Cal to wake up haphazardly retching from his collapsed position. Zack stoops to prop him up against a seat. He coughs up seawater and blood in equal measure for so long Kadira is half convinced he's going to die again before he's properly alive and the rush of gratitude and adrenaline she gets when he finally stumbles to his feet, pale but living, nearly causes her knees to buckle.

If Cal says anything it's lost to a final shot from Zack's rocket launcher, the canonic whoosh briefly obscuring any noise. It strikes the last helicopter and in a stroke of impossible skill or maybe luck brings the metal screaming down directly on one of the remaining jetskies. The other one can't dodge the wreckage and explodes in a beautiful fireball, the light catching the wan, bloodstained faces of both Cal and Zack and making Kadira blink fiercely and look away, denying the tears that prick the corners of her eyes.

She crashes the boat when they hit the shore, the water they took on during the chase sloshing around everyone's ankles interspersed with hundred dollar bills. They scoop what they can into the bags.

Zack jumps out first, landing roughly in the sand and then turning to catch the bags one by one as they drop them down. Kadira busies herself drizzling gasoline everywhere when Cal heaves himself over the side, still moving stiffly despite his lungs being healed. Task done she tosses the can and straddles the banister of the boat, tugging off one bloodstained boot and then the other. She throws them into the center of the boat to burn and then drops off the side, landing in an awkward crouch. Zack steadies her, Cal flicking a lighter until it sparks despite the seawater. He lobs it into the boat and they flee up the beach, stumbling under the weight of the bags. The boat catches aflame with a sucking of air from behind them and Kadira can't help but slow and look back at the blaze.

After a moment of staring there's a touch on her arm and she looks over into Cal's face, startlingly close. He doesn't quite smile but the tension around his eyes eases and he leans in to kiss her gently, lips reassuringly warm. She exhales into the kiss, swaying a little towards him with relief. Zack clears his throat impatiently beside them and leans in when Kadira steps back to steal his own kiss from Cal.

By the time they part Kadira's made it to the car, footprints dug into the drier sand higher up. She starts the engine once they throw the bags in the back and complains loudly and overly-cheerfully the whole way home about how uncomfortable operating the gas pedals is without shoes until Cal strips off his shirt and throws it into the footwell. His chest is smooth and unmarred by any bullet holes and she feels the last tension in her spine let go.

 

* * *

 

 

Kadira kicks at the box's bottom edge, swearing under her breath until she's wrestled it flat and can stack it on the pile of cardboard taking up half the hallway. Behind her Cal puts the last of the pots away in the kitchen cabinet with careful precision. Zack, in his infinite wisdom, is sliding around the wood floors in his socks, gleefully popping bubblewrap strips while the others pretend to ignore him.

Kadira reaches for the next still-standing box and has just started to tear into its seams when there's a yelp and a horrible, sick cracking noise. She whips around as Cal drops the pot in his hands, the clang masking the thud of Zack hitting the floor. Blood is smeared on the corner of the island and more runs over his face in thick streams, bone showing through the gore.

Cal's hands barely shake as he checks Zack's body for a pulse. He grimaces at Kadira, who's standing pale, jaw clenched, above him.

"You did warn him." Kadira says, the words not nearly as casual as she tries for.

Cal snorts without humor and gets a grip under Zack's still-warm armpits, trying to ignore how his head flops around with the jostling, dripping blood on the floor. "Grab his legs, we'll put him at the table."

They set him up in a chair, pinning him slack-limbed between the chair and table. Kadira makes to brush his hair out of his face and stops just shy of touching, hesitating for a long moment before she turns on her heel to get the cleaning products out from under the sink. Cal picks up the pot he dropped and puts it away, then washes his hands with clinical precision before chopping vegetables and throwing them handful by handful into a skillet, his back to the table.

Zack wakes slowly, blinking blood out of his eyes to find Cal and Kadira sitting on either side of him at the table. There's a plate of stir fry in front of him that matches the ones they're picking at. Noticing he's awake, Kadira's shoulders sag just slightly and she smiles at him, twisting to kick pointedly at his chair leg. "Go clean up, your dinner's getting cold and I think you have blood in...everywhere."

Cal catches his hand when he stands, squeezing it pointedly when Zack looks at him, still a bit dazed. "No more sock sliding. We already lost the security deposit on this place."

 

* * *

 

 

They don't generally hit convenience stores - too much hassle for such small rewards - but they need the cash (and some groceries) and Zack is craving a snickers. "Two snickers." he says over the comms, his voice tinny but clear in their ears as they stroll into the store somewhere around 2am. "No, three snickers."

Kadira turns, ostensibly to smile at Cal, and flips off the building Zack's perched on, sniper rifle at the ready. The bored clerk doesn't notice, half-hidden behind a magazine and the counter, and they split up to do some light shopping, jostling each other through the aisles as Zack snarks in their ear.

Kadira dumps her armful of goods on the counter, smiling sweetly at Cal when he pointedly drops four snickers on top. Adrenaline is singing through her veins and her hands are perfectly steady when she hands the clerk a couple of crumpled bills. He punches the numbers into the register with sleepy precision and the cash drawer slides out and then Cal has a gun in his face while Kadira sweeps their purchases into a bag and tips her chin at the money. "In the bag, please."

He's seen their faces but in this city that hardly matters. All he can focus on now is the barrel of the gun held in Cal's steady hand and he passes over the money with little hassle. They're packing up and on the move in under ninety seconds.

Kadira exits first, plastic bag dangling absently from her hand. Cal follows her out and starts to tuck the gun away once they're in the pool of the streetlights when two shots ring out nearly simultaneously.

From her spot just a little ahead and to the side of him it looks like Cal trips on something, body jolting forward, but the spray of blood from his chest makes her stomach drop. Zack is swearing and apologizing over the coms, a flood of words that Kadira cuts short as she drops the money and slides under Cal's shoulder, steering him towards a nearby alley. "Zack! Is he dead?"

"Yeah, yes, I shot him, I'm sorry, I didn't see the shotgun-"

"Quiet, I need to focus." She almost wishes she hadn't said that as she leans Cal against a wall. Without Zack's babble she can hear the way Cal wheezes, blood pooling in the holes in his lungs and making him gasp and choke feebly. His eye is screwed shut against the pain and without her holding him up he pitches sideways into an awkward sitting position, a smear of blood following him down the wall.

For a quick moment Kadira is sure she's going to throw up, but she wills the feeling away and drops beside him, pushing at his jacket and shirt. The cloth sticks to the messy wounds - why did it have to be a shotgun - and makes Cal whimper and flinch from her hands, his breathing shallow and ragged when he can get air at all.

His chest is a riddled mess of holes, all of them jagged and too-large and she thinks under the unique tang of blood she can smell something like a sewer, rotten and fowl. "I think it nicked your bowel." She says, her voice just barely shaking. Cal opens his eye just long enough to meet hers, trying to speak, but it just makes blood bubble in his throat. Air cut off, he struggles with himself for a long minute, fighting to catch his breath. The noises he makes, soft and panicked and instinctual, make Kadira's fingers numb with fear until he's breathing shallowly again.

"Christ, 'Dira." Zack's voice breaks a little in her ear. "Can you- can you take his comm out."

She remembers suddenly that he's there, and that they're crouching in an alley half a block from a fresh crime scene. She reaches forward to take the comm from Cal's ear while talking quickly into hers. "How long before the police show up?"

"I..." Zack sounds at a loss and she can't hear any noise that indicates that he's packing his rifle up.

"Zack!" she snaps, "Focus!"

"28 minutes left on the jammer." he fires back, startled into motion. "Cal- He's not..."

In front of her Cal is stirring, the smallest motions of his arm making his chest heave with the pain and effort. He can't talk, can barely breathe, but his intention is clear as he pulls his gun free of its holster and nudges it towards her with weak fingertips.

"Get clear. We'll be right behind you." She says firmly, tamping down any emotion into a small, easily ignorable ball.

"But-"

"Go!" She can hear the sounds of him packing up over the comm before she takes hers out too, flipping it off before tucking it deep into a pocket. She picks up Cal's gun, standing to get some distance, muzzle pointed unwaveringly at his head. He's crying a little, tears leaking involuntarily down his face, and she just wants the sick sucking noises to stop and it's too easy to pull the trigger, the silencer barely echoing in the suddenly-quiet alley.

She sits with his corpse.

The minutes crawl by agonizingly slowly. She's so cold she's shivering and at some point she's dropped his gun so it lays on the asphalt in front of her and she can't take her eyes off of it.

When Cal comes back there's already sirens in the distance. She'd clutch at him and possibly cry but the job comes first and it's shockingly simple to forget to feel anything. She picks up his gun and the discarded shopping bag and they run out the back of the alley as the police lights touch the front. He breathes evenly with the exercise, lungs inflating fluidly, and there's no horrible noises except that now she can't breathe and her air is escaping her in little gasping breaths.

She waves off his concern. They don't have time for this, for her to have a breakdown because she shot her lover in the face. She trips over the words, in her heads and out in the world, and is suddenly on her knees on the pavement, a stinging in her hands and knees from the impact.

"Hey, hey." his voice is gentle as he touches her, maneuvering her so she's looking up at him where he's crouching next to her. His clothing is a bloody mess and there's still dried blood caked around his mouth but his skin is a proper pink and his hands feel warm against her skin. "You did the right thing." He continues talking to her, low and careful, as he helps her back to her feet. She focuses on the cadence of his voice and lets him coax her into walking.

They find the bike where they left it half a dozen blocks away and she doesn't fight him when he gets on first. It's a comfort to get on behind him, arms spread across his unbroken chest, fingers digging into knitted-together muscle and skin until he winces a little but doesn't protest.

They're nearly home when they stop at a red light and she has a chance of being heard over the wind. "I'm going to need therapy when we get out this. And by therapy, I mean alcohol." Her voice shakes a little but she feels more settled in her own skin.

"Seconded."


	3. Chapter 3

They need two bodies in the bank and one in a getaway car. With Kadira on the roof across the street with her sniper rifle it's an easy decision to ask William about someone to hire. He's an old friend of Kadira's; a ready supply of weapons, ammo, explosives and jobs, and sure enough he has them come meet a potential body only two days after making contact.

Echo - not her name, apparently, but the only one she'll give when on business - is short. Really short, and small in a way that has everything to do with how she holds herself. She's practically drowning in an oversized knitted sweater in a floral pattern, the sleeves pulled down past her hands and a mop of curly red hair in her face. Zack snorts under his breath when she walks up, but shakes her hand on introductions and seems surprised.

Kadira gets why when she shakes Echo's hand - the woman's grip is shockingly firm, her hand calloused and covered in scars big enough Kadira can feel them even in the second of contact. She nods thoughtfully as Cal reaches forward to introduce himself as well.

"William said you need a getaway driver." It's a statement, not a question, clearly nothing more than an opening gambit. Echo's got a noticeable Scottish accent, thick but not overpowering, and she's watching Kadira the most closely.

"One job. You get a third of the take, we never see each other again."

"I want to see the plans." She's dropped her sleeve back over her hand and is hugging herself. Somehow the posture doesn't look defensive, just...cuddly. Kadira catches herself pausing too long and mentally shakes herself, and nods.

"Of course. William will give us your email. We'll be in touch."

Echo nods and leaves as soundlessly as she showed up, William grinning ruefully in her wake. He tosses Kadira a flash drive. "She does good work. Want to see the latest explosives shipment before you leave?"

Kadira smiles sharply, tucking the drive away. "Always."

 

* * *

 

 

Kadira dies three times in a row. The first one is genuine enough; even Cal wasn't paranoid enough to expect a second sniper watching the first, who was watching Kadira. It's possible they've gained a little too much notoriety. They retrieve her body from the roof after the shootout and go about their day a few hundred thousand dollars richer.

Not even a day later Kadira leaves their apartment to go meet with William and barely gets ten feet past the door when a bus with broken brakes smears her over the pavement. She manages to shove Zack out of the way just before it hits and he's able to recover her while everyone's still panicking.

The third time, well.

"This is getting rediculous." Kadira says as soon as she's alive, sitting up from where they'd placed her on the bathroom mat. Cal is sitting on the toilet, Zack perched on the counter, half in the sink. They've put pants on, she notices, and given her a towel to keep away the chill, for what it's worth to a dead person. She adjusts it around herself, glad that at least they'd apparently managed to keep her from dripping blood anywhere they can't clean up. "We collectively made it to old age without dying once, and now we're up to... fourteen deaths in three months?"

"Fifteen." Zack says, swinging his legs and lightly kicking Cal in the side. Cal grabs the closer foot and holds it still, rubbing his thumb across the top in a soothing motion. "Shower sex probably wasn't the best plan." He shakes his leg a little but doesn't manage to dislodge Cal. Shrugging, he goes back to swinging just his free foot.

They've had stranger conversations in stranger places and it's almost reassuringly normal to be sitting on the bathroom floor having a heart-to-heart.

"We have to stop doing this." Cal says, then backtracks when both Kadira and Zack shoot him affronted looks. "Not sex, dying. Although not having shower sex might help."

"At least with no more than two people at a time." Zack adds helpfully, then squeaks when Cal flicks his toe for it.

"We can't die on the heist." Cal continues as if he hadn't been interrupted. "I know there's rumors about us but we haven't left anyone alive to confirm yet. And Echo will be close enough to notice."

Kadira shrugs, getting slowly to her feet while trying to ignore sore muscles and a lingering crick in her neck from the impact. Zack reaches out impulsively to bump her thigh with his other foot, checking in, and she pets his hair absently as she walks past into the bedroom. "We shouldn't even have to draw guns." she calls back to them, dropping the towel. "No one's going to die."

Zack yelps as Cal does something to him, then stumbles out of the bathroom to flop on the bed, followed by Cal. The older man starts to get dressed but Zack just rolls onto his back, head dangling off the end of the bed to watch them upside down. He pouts at Kadira until she flicks a shirt at him before putting on her bra and panties. He sputters, affronted, but offers the cloth out to her when she reaches for it after pulling on pants. Cal is nearly fully dressed when Zack finally speaks, apparently deciding that his puppy eyes are not effective enough. "We didn't even get to finish..."

Cal snorts and Kadira stifles a smile as she applies mascara at the mirror. "Did my dying interrupt your plans?"

She can see Zack pouting at her in the mirror and laughs when Cal leans over to give him a wet, smacking kiss on the throat, making Zack gag a little and sit up. Cal, to her delight, also tousels Zack's hair, leaving it an even bigger mess than it was before walking over to sedately kiss Kadira on the cheek, careful not to disturb her applying lipstick.

"I have a plan." Cal says.

She glances sideways at him and raises an eyebrow.

"It's a secret plan."

 

* * *

 

 

Cal's plan has Zack in stitches against a wall, hands on knees while he fights to breathe and not fall over. Kadira's pretty sure he's crying by this point and she's not doing much better, choking out words between laughter. "Where- where did you f-find this oh- my g-g-god!"

The sign hangs proudly on the wall - '003 DAYS WITHOUT INCIDENT' - and is in the smugest shades of yellow and black immaginable, a horrid eyesore that causes Zack to howl with laughter every time he so much as sees it out of the corner of his eyes again.

Cal had tried to keep his cool when they'd first spotted it upon tumbling into the apartment but once the younger pair started laughing his smirk had turned into a full, delighted grin.

The sign stays.

 

* * *

 

 

They crack jokes about it constantly but the next time Cal has to bail Zack's body out of a firefight he waits until they've just stepped in the door to cross to the sign - 021 DAYS WITHOUT INCIDENT - catch Zack's eyes, and pointedly flip it back to 000. Zack sticks his tongue out at him and stomps deeper into the house to get sympathy from Kadira but she only snorts, waving the disassembled innards of her sniper rifle at him. "Serves you right for being so clumsy."

"I wasn't clumsy! Some idiot shot that cop's tire; HE ran into ME!"

His whining goes completely unheeded. Kadira makes vague sympathetic noises as he continues talking but her attention is clearly on cleaning the gun piece by piece.

When Cal pokes his head in an hour later Zack's sprawled on his back on the floor, tossing a rubber band ball up to catch it again and still talking to Kadira's back. She's bent over the table, headphones in (whether Zack hasn't noticed or just doesn't care is a mystery). Cal clears his throat and neither looks up, Zack going on about everything being "UNFAIR bcause I had put SO MUCH WORK into it and then he just goes and THROWS it like-" while Kadira's either listening to him, bopping her head to her music, or has fallen asleep while sitting up again.

Cal opts to grab the day's paper and return, settling on the low couch on the opposite wall of the workroom. He snaps the paper open pointedly when Zack pauses in his monologue for the briefest moment to see if the older man is going to contribute. Thus rebuffed Zack picks up where he left off with a sigh, wiggling about a bit to lean one of his feet against Cal's ankle without looking away from the ball he's still tossing.


End file.
